Housing

• One of the ETAs in Sobral lived in a room in a biology professor’s apartment (the program director helped set that up - an ETA has lived there both years so far).

• The program director brought us to two or three different student housing options that were really affordable/communal, but we decided to pay more to stay in a suite in a hotel (two of the ETAs from the year prior had done the same). However, living with one of your co-ETAs can be really difficult at times and if I went through the experience again I would probably consider student housing or finding a place to stay with local roommates instead.

• Facebook groups people can follow (you can type in republica, apartamento, areas like Centro or Pedrinhas, or university names or acronyms - the main ones being UVA, UFSC, and UNINTA, and LGBT; a common and more subtle way is to say “sem preconceitos”).

• A website I never used myself but that students and people from there mentioned a lot was olx.

• Other tips:

  • Tip 1: I would live in one of the main areas (Centro or Pedrinhas), ideally as close to UVA and the Arco as possible. The city is small and walkable if you live in these areas. (I lived in a hotel across from the Arco and could walk 10-15 minutes to UVA, 10-15 minutes to the Margem do Rio, 5-7 minutes to a grocery store, was really close to tons of restaurants and a few of the only places for young people to hang out including Donna C and The Joe’s Pub - there’s also a one or two block stretch that is a rather bougie area where a restaurant called Bricks is, most of your students will recognize it as bougie and feel that they can’t afford to go there but they are worth trying out for sure.)

  • Tip 2: Sobral is hot as f¯*** and having a place with natural air circulation, fans, and/or AC is crucial — I am from Minnesota and generally run hot, so having AC was important to me, but one of my co-ETAs lived without AC for the entire seven months we were there.

Health

Medical resources for LGBTQ persons in your community (special clinics, testing, treatment, pharmacies, etc.)

• PrEP/STI-testing: Centro de Referência em Infectologia de Sobral (CRIS).

• I went here and they are LGBTQ-friendly, it is relatively quick service (other than the first time when you are registering and getting your SUS card - you can get tested with your passport, but will need a CPF and whatnot to see a doctor and get a prescription for PrEP; I highly recommend getting a 3-month supply in the United States before arriving in Brazil to give yourself time to figure it out); syphilis seems to be the main STI concern, and they test you for Hepatitis alongside HIV and syphilis.

• I did not use any mental health services there, but when I asked at CRIS they gave me the information about what it was called and where to find it. You can ask your students, especially psych and bio students, as well.

Culture

Podcasts, literature, movies, music, etc.

YOU NEED TO WATCH THE SHOW “GLITTER,” BASICALLY A REGION-SPECIFIC VERSION OF DRAG RACE THAT THERE ARE TWO SEASONS OF AND THAT YOU CAN WATCH ON YOUTUBE — all the bichas use slang and phrases from the show, make jokes about it, reference it a lot, etc. so it is really helpful for both Cearense and queer slang and culture.

Language

How to include trans/gender-nonbinary people in conversations in your country’s language(s)

• “Mulher” - used to address queers/friends regardless gender; when emphasizing or being hella cearense or getting someone’s attention it can be pronounced “mulé” or “mulér” or “mulhé” — the most queer cearense phrase I’ve probably heard is “vala mulé!”

• “Eaeeee” *more high-pitched and nasal*  also works as a “heeeeeyyy” to your sisters here; I would often say/hear “eaeee mulhé”

• Speaking more nasally in general is pretty gay, especially with words that have an ‘a’ at the end; porra will become “porran” for example

• “Gay” gets used for queer women as well - I’ve literally been in a group and heard someone say things like “levanta gay!” or “bora gay”

• “Bicha” gets used for for women too (especially queer women and women who are close with queer folks)

• Sapatão - lesbian (didn’t hear sapa or sapatilha as much where I was living but I was also mostly around queer men)

• Rebuceteio/recuceteio - buceta (“pussy”) and cu (“ass”) get mixed into these words to describe the small web of queer women/men/people respectively that have kissed or hooked up or dated or whatever else together and it doesn’t take much to connect everyone, especially in the smaller Brazilian cities

• “Mana” - sis

• You’ll hear/read “viada” instead of viado, particularly with femmes/drag queens/enbies

• “Baitola” - another word similar to viado, but less common and seemed more pejorative than other words

• “Menines” - gender-neutral y’all, or playing up being a queer militante

• “Rolê” - party, going out, date

• trans/travesti are used often and it didn’t seem stigmatized when a cis gay men would say something like “olhaa essa mulher trans maravilhosaa lindaa” or something else meant to be complementary (a femme/enby drag queen friend of mine who was close with a trans woman in the community who was transitioning even asked if he could feel her breasts in front of me once)

• “Arrasar” will often get used in the third-person past without the ‘a’ at the beginning and just be ‘rrasou’ when you liked something or want to say an equivalent of “slay” or “werk”

• “Pisar” (and “pisou”) get used in the same way as “arrasar,” and when texting I would see a friend use the heel emoji after

• “Lacrar” (and “lacrou”) get used in the same way as “arrasar” as well

• Get on Grindr and you’ll see a whole other language of its own there

• It’s very 2009 apparently, but a good friend of mine still did this thing where he would just add “am” (nasal) at the end of words greeting people with “oieam” or saying goodbye with “tchauam” and so on

• Sobralenses/Cearenses have their own accent:

  • You’ll hear the “r” puxado like in Rio (sounding closer to an “h” rather than a trilled “r” or interior paulista hard “r” that sounds almost American) and they pronounce “s” as a “sh” sound after the letter “t”/other consonants/with certain words;

  • People will eat a lot of their words or cut them down a little shorter (with older people especially it’s sometimes a WTF are you saying scenario but it gets easier)

  • Sobralense/Cearense Vocab:

    • valha - exclamation, people say it in response to everything! when emphasizing or being hella Cearense or it’s followed by something else it can be pronounced as just “vala”

    • bó (and “bora”) - a shortened version of “vamos embora” (“let’s go”)

    • vixe (pronounced “veesh”) - an exclamation you’ll hear people say when something didn’t work out or is a yikes type situation 

    • vissar/frescar - verbs that mean to make jokes

    • é sal - something worked out, or you’re saying something is okay or alright

    • acolá - over there, way over there, over yonder

    • lacolá - same as above (there’s a phrase people say too: “lacolá… tem um cachorro bebendo água” because with the “l” in front it vaguely sounds like the sound you hear when a dog is drinking water

    • lástá - “lá está,” when you suddenly see something in the distance

    • desembaçar - softer way to say “get away”

    • armaria - shorted version of Ave Maria, used as an exclamation

    • baixa da égua - never heard it used unironically but essentially means “bumf*ck nowhere”

    • Senta lá Cláudia - an old meme, kinda like bye Felicia; nobody used it unironically and usually just to explain to me what it was

    • no banheiro - not necessarily grammatically correct but you’ll hear people use “no” as the preposition for that

    • massa - cool

    • dá hora/daora - “lit”

    • um beck - a joint

    • balinha - what you buy to make “um beck”

    • embaçar/atrapalhar - if you’re in an area that is “embaçado,” it means it’s an inconvenient spot and can’t smoke because police are around and might be watching

Race & Ethnicity

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